Ice, Fire, and a Purple Flower
by Amilanthior
Summary: This is the story of three adventurers running from everything they know, their past, their actions, and their guilt. All towards a goal that seems impossible. Will they make it in this old, but new world where they have nothing but themselves, and their sanity?
1. No Solace

**A/N: This fanfiction is in the world of another fanfiction, so I guess it's fanfic-ception? Idk, but whatever, you can find a link to the original story by GuiltyKingOumaShu, an amazing writer, I can tell you that, I highly recommend you read a little into it before reading this, everything will make much more sense. Or, if you would like to skim over the really important parts for this story, just read chapter 22, Black Widow, the events in this story come after it.**

 **Link:** **s/8897975/22/Reclaiming-the-Throne**

 **But without further stalling, welcome, to the world of these three Genesis.**

 **This, is where the tale begins.**

 **-End note-**

She ran as if her life depended on it, which it probably did, to be honest.

The street ahead was filled with potholes, from which water spilled like large, bloated boils. It was raining heavily, the kind where it came down as a constant downpour, a battering that never tired, never stopped, a relentless foe that pursued her wherever she went, unescapable. She could barely see anything, hear anything, and much less feel anything except for the chilling cold. She was used to the cold, yet her entire body shivered, whether from the cold, or the adrenaline pouring and coursing through her veins and arteries, she didn't know, she didn't care. All that mattered now was running from her chasers.

Somehow, through the deafening sound of rain coming down, and even with the tiny amount of visibility offered even by her Genesis-eyes, the others could tell the direction she was running. Not that she knew where she was going, that was, and her only goal was to get away from that battlefield, that massacre….that complete and utter **slaughter.**

She'd been at the front lines, fighting, when Mana had come.

Except it wasn't Mana, wasn't the queen she'd known.

It was a ghastly apparition, a horrifying, merciless monster of the person that had once been Mana. As she raged on, to her, there was no distinction of friend, or foe. Everything she saw needed to be slain, everything that Mana saw, she wanted to end.

She had never been loyal to her, but she was the only figure of order that they had, so she simply followed orders, and walked around in the shadows of her commanders. Even now, she withheld her void, reluctant to pull it out. Lest it was shot by some other's void and destroyed. Unlike it had been in the crystal world, death, here, on Earth was very, very real, and could come in an instant.

In the midst of her frantic sprint, muscles not even the slightest tired, she hadn't noticed that the path she'd been running down had stopped, and ended with a rickety bridge out into the waters of the Sumida River. She was effectively cornered, and had no place to run. As the panicked girl turned to run, a dreaded sight met her. The faces of her former captains, and her former 'friends', now all lit with the crazed look of murders killing for fun, for sport. They were the hunters, and she was their prey.

"Come on, did you really think it would be that easy to run?" Her former captain said, voice tipped with sadistic pleasure.

"Please, just let me go" the girl said, suitably terrified.

"Oh, I don't know, should I? After all, you deserted your fellow clan-mates; do you really think that you deserve my mercy? No, no I don't think so, you deserve to die like a dog that can't make any more puppies, a worthless bitch, and wouldn't you agree? Valka?"

Valka didn't really have a choice by that time. In all animals, all living, breathing things that have the capability of thought, there was a primal instinct that just came on when faced with death.

 _Fight or Flight?_

The odds were stacked massively against her, four, highly trained Genesis Mananites against one highly trained Genesis Mananite. She'd be killed in an instant, with not even a chance of survival. Fight was out of question. Her brain chose the next option, run.

 _I suppose now's the time_

With one smooth moment, she pulled out her void. It was an urumi, a sword with a flexible whip-like blade. The void was coloured black, and had an electric blue outline around the edges. The weapons swirled around Valka's body, glowing blue.

"Ohhhhh! What a pretty void! Shame though, it'll be lying in a pool of blood in a moment."

Instead of charging, Valka simply ran off the edge of the harbour, into the frothing sea.

Or so it seemed. In reality, she had teleported forward, straight onto the hard, solid concrete that she had been aiming for. But the void's power wasn't foolproof, whenever she 'teleported', she left a slowly dissipating trail of freezing, clearly visible white mist. It was for this reason that she found herself being chased again almost immediately.

She started to run again, black stiletto heels clacking down loudly on the hard, paved street. Dimly, she wondered if she would really escape, and if her running away was simply delaying the inevitable, but she shook them away as soon as they emerged. She remembered one of her dad's favourite quotes, and it bolstered her will to continue.

 _There would be no point to giving yourself up now,_ she told herself, over and over again, trying to convince a quickly dying will to continue running.

So imagine her surprise when she was suddenly yoinked off the street by a pair of gloved hands. She was pulled into an alleyway, where her assaulter pushed both of them into a doorway, where they were obscured by a narrow wall. A thin, easily penetrable layer of concrete between her, and a bunch of sadistic, corrupted killers. It was almost funny. But what was most definitely **not** funny was the stranger's hand firmly clasped over her mouth. Valka turned her head to take a look at the person who'd most likely saved her, and saw next to nothing. It wasn't just the completely obscured vision provided to her by the rain; it was also the fact that he was wearing a violet-hooded cloak.

Then the voice that she'd been dreading came, and she bit down tightly on her lip, despite the rest of her body staying completely rigid. For his part, the purple-clad person remained completely calm, yet just as rigid as her.

"Where could she have gone?" muttered one of her former friends.

"She can't have gone far, stick together, groups of two, fan out, and call me if you see anything." Said the captain, before she ran off, wicked-looking void at the ready.

Then the other two started to walk through an alley. The exact one that Valka was hiding in.

"Man, it's really exciting, isn't it? I've never really liked Valka, such a fucking prude. Had some nice tits though, and wasn't so bad-looking eith-"

"Shh!" motioned the other Mananite; he looked around, peering suspiciously.

"She's here! Run! Go get-"

All sound was cut off, and it was as if he'd stopped talking altogether. Even as they both moved their mouths in confusion; nothing came out, no sound, no words, and no cries of panic. Just a deathly, unnatural silence. That was when the mysterious stranger struck. On each arm, there appeared a short hook-sword attached to a glowing bracer that had a small bead that glistened dully.

The two murderers drew their voids, a pair of sickles, and a rifle with a bayonet. Wasting no time, they attempted to cut down their new enemy, but to no avail. The one with sickles swung one at his head, only to have the blade parried, and then hooked. The stranger then pushed the sickle wielder to the ground by the blade, immobilising the second sickle as they struggled to keep the balance. Using the other blade, the stranger then cut him down, skewering him through the chest, and just in time.

The rifle shot, spewing hot, fiery death out at the person. But every bullet simply met the lifeless corpse of their teammate, stopping in their tracks as the strengthened flesh caught each bullet. Then the stranger reached their target, who stopped using the gun, and switched to their bayonet, they tried to skewer the purple-clad figure, but he sidestepped the clumsy attempt, before slashing the rifler twice across the lower-torso, causing crippling pain, and then dealing the finishing blow, an upwards thrust, straight into the brain, and out the other end.

Through all this, not a sound had been made, to any person passing by, nothing had happened.

Valka looked at the person in slight fear, prepared to run at any moment, should a threat appear in the person who'd just savaged two people. But they pulled back the hood, and she saw that they were a he, for one. Another thing she noticed, was that they had black, obsidian coloured hair that had unnatural tips of purple, as if he'd dyed it. And his eyes, they were a bright, gleaming amaranth.

He was looking at the corpses, and said only four words,

"Night night, sleep tight."


	2. Safety is Far From Here

**A/N: Right, continuing off from where we were, I forgot to mention the name of the fanfiction! Derp :P, Anyway, it's name is, 'Reclaiming the Throne' Again, would highly recommend reading it over, if you like Guilty Crown, but hated the ending, you're sure to love it.**

 **But whatever, without further adieu, welcome to Chapter Two of Ice, Fire, and a Purple Flower.**

 **-End-**

 **Safety is Far From Here**

Valka simply stared at him, death and killing wasn't something she was a stranger to. People actually helping her without anything to gain, however, were complete anomalies to her. In all the time that she'd been in Miyabi's group, the Crimson Scythes, never had she been privy to such a show of selflessness, everything back then had been done with something to gain, favours, money, food. Generosity had been as rare as sanity.

"Wh-"

"Move your arse, unless you **want** to be captured, that is. If that's the case, I strongly recommend that you adjust how you entertain yourselves in the Crimson Scythe."

She blushed heavily in outrage, feeling the angry warmth spread across her body as the words registered in her head. If she'd been able-bodied, she would have tried to rip the boy apart. As such, she was weakened, however slightly, and fighting him would only lessen her chances at getting away. She stood up, and nodded, preparing for yet another sprint.

"Ah, shit."

Turning around with surprise at his words, she suddenly realised why. The other two of her chasers were standing together, blocking their way out. The expressions on their faces confirmed that they were indeed, very, **very,** unhappy. Both had their voids out, and were standing in puddles of mud, water, and blood, staring at both Valka, and the other boy like starved lions. Hungry…angry… **animalistic.**

"Holy. Shit. Is that you, Aster? One of Nanba's missing captains? Holy crap, I haven't seen you around in ages!" the captain said with glee, and also the slightest hints of surprise.

The woman prodded the dead corpses, looking at them with a hint of awe. They were killed in a very surgical way, clean, concise cuts, the deadliest efficiency. It marked an experienced killer, and one that had years to refine their tactics.

"I can see why you're a leader. You took these two down with no sweat at all. I bet you didn't feel bad about killing them at all. Did you?" She sneered while saying this, clearly enjoying taunting her opposition.

Valka looked back to Aster, realising that the name rang a bell.

 _This is the Poison Berry? Seriously!? A kid in a hood and cloak?_

To his credit, he didn't seem provoked at all, completely neutral. This impressed her slightly as she realised the kind of a fighter that he was, a tactician through and through. He seemed to know the disadvantages of fighting in anger. Such emotions clouded one's judgements, and made it exceedingly difficult to predict an opponent's moves.

"Playing the strong, silent type, eh? Prick-" The captain was silenced, just as the other two had been. Once again, the world fell into a deathly silence, it made everything seem strangely calm, as if there wasn't about to be a massive fight. Meanwhile, the captain had turned a rosy shade of red, anger now clearly present on her face, and in her actions. The movements of her mouth also suggested some very, very foul language.

While Valka had been amusing herself with looking at her former captain's anger, Aster had been thoroughly examining the pair's voids. The captain herself was armed with Reaver Claws, large, sharp blades attached to a bracer meant to be worn on a finger. She herself was wearing one on each finger, ten, sharp, brutal weapons in total, designed for tearing, ripping, and causing the most painful death as possible by digging into their victim's flesh.

Her companion was armed with two Saber Claws, two long, sharp blades shaped like a saber-tooth. This made Valka quite worried. Her urumi was very poorly suited to fighting against weapons which would catch the blade, and she was less than confident in her ability to melee. But she would try her best. She didn't know Aster, but the fact that he hadn't backstabbed her yet was reassuring, if only because she was assured life for a few more moments.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine. That kid with the saber-claws isn't the most experienced fighter here. Just remember, your urumi's speciality is in the long reach provided to you. Use it to your advantage, and destroy your enemy at all costs, because if you don't, they will. One or the other matey, take your pick."

She looked at Aster, surprised yet again; she didn't take him for a type to help people he didn't know

 _Today's just full of surprises._

Too fast for her to fully comprehend, her current ally bolted at the captain, completely pushing past the other grunt. But somehow, his opponent blocked the forward jab with relative ease, catching the hook blade in her claws. She smiled, a deadly, cocky look of triumph laced with palpable anger.

She swung her other hand around, aiming for his lower body, but Aster simply used the other hook-blade to stop the deadly strike. Now they were in deadlock, each weapon occupied. The captain used the time to smile, Aster used the time to smash his forehead into her face. The crunchy feeling as he broke her nose, smashing the cartilage, was immensely satisfying. Blood sprayed out, and splattered across his face as the lady drew back in pain, staggering as she tried to stop the bleeding.

She ran back towards Aster, forming claws with her hands in an attempt to rip him apart. She was fighting fully blind now; anger had completely clouded her vision. Big mistake. The moment she was close enough, Aster pushed one of her hands away at the wrist. Then he did something that chilled Valka down to her bones. Grabbing her other hand, again, by the wrist, he twisted it, and pushed it down to her arm. The snap, crunches, and pops were clearly audible as the wrist broke, and dislocated.

So was the scream.

She staggered back, screaming both in fury and in anger. Arguably, a person who was blind in rage could sometimes be even more dangerous than one thinking clearly. This was certainly the case with this person. She leapt at Aster with newfound vigour, slashing and thrusting, all while yelling and screaming. For some reason, Aster had turned off the strange ability of his void, in favour of hearing his opponent yelling and screaming.

"I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL SKIN YOU ALIVE, AND WEAR IT AS A COAT! I'LL CUT OFF EACH OF YOUR FINGERS, AND SHOVE THEM UP YOUR ASS!"

His reply was a steely look, and careful footwork. But slowly, and slowly, he was being pushed back. Meanwhile, the other person had veered off, and was looking straight at Valka. The alleyway was thin and narrow, which restricted her usage of her void, but also stop him from using his blade in a wide, sweeping arc.

"Ohhhh, I'm gonna enjoy this." He said, smiling leeringly.

"I assure you, after I'm done, you won't be enjoying anything for quite a while." Valka replied, glaring at him.

He drew his void, as did Valka, and started to walk slowly towards her, staring into her eyes. Then he lunged at her, twirling the void around his wrist and stabbing at her chest, aiming for the spots that would hurt most. She didn't let him get even near to her. Using the long, whip-like blade, she kept him at bay with the threat of a long gash splitting open his belly should he get close enough.

But she wasn't getting anywhere either, realistically, they were at a stalemate, neither of them pushing up further and getting a blow on the other. Just blocking, and flinging their voids around rather uselessly. So she tried something new. She pulled the whip back, and started to whip it around her body, forming a type of wall. The boy tried to advance, seeing her open spots, he ran in, straight into Valka's line of defence. In one second, the boy was pulling his arm back to stab at Valka's gut. In the next moment, his arm wasn't there anymore. Blood sputtered and spewed out of the grievous wound, and the boy yelled, falling into shock as the sudden trauma of his arm being dismembered got to him.

His biggest mistake was not walking out of the way. As Valka knew from countless years of fighting against others in the crystal realm, her void, shaped like an urumi, was carried by momentum. Once it started to move, it wouldn't stop anytime soon. Against her will, she kept moving, swaying and moving with her whip-like void. The boy's fate was grisly, to say the least, as the weapon cut through his body one, two, three times in total. The body that remained was cut into three, large, disgusting parts of gore that used to be a human.

She looked away, feeling somewhat guilty for what she'd done. Even though death had lost its toll on her after a while, seeing such a grisly demise, committed by her own hands, made it even worse. The scent of irony, viscous blood drifted into her nostrils, and she gagged. One thing she'd never gotten used to though was the sickening smell of human blood. To her, there was just something fundamentally **wrong** about the smell of blood from another Genesis she'd killed.

On the other end, Aster had sustained multiple wounds to his arms, all minor scratches and cuts, but he was well aware that those added up with time, additionally, while he became weaker and weaker, she only seemed to get stronger with every wound that she received. She knew it, and he knew it. If he didn't do something soon, e would most likely be cut down and killed.

So he decided to do something…drastic.

Aster drew back his left arm, and let the claws dig into his forearm, wincing as the void gouged into his arm. As his opponent laughed at his apparent pain, he used the opportunity to grip her injured wrist, and twist it around even further. It had the desired effect of making her turn a pale, white shade as her brain registered the pain. She tried to pull her other, uninjured hand out of Aster's wound, but found that he wouldn't let her go.

His opponent's pale, blue eyes meet his piercing amaranth eyes, and she could swear that he was smiling inside.

"Well, you were right about one thing, I **still** don't give a shit about killing you, or them."

Lifting the blade on his right bracer up, he hooked the end around her shoulder, and tore it off with a brutal, messy cut. She didn't even have time to scream before he put his hands around her neck, and started to squeeze. She choked and gagged, trying to bat at his face with her butchered and useless hand, but to no avail.

Eventually, she stopped moving, eyes rolled back into her skull. She had died a horrible, painful death, and Aster still couldn't give less of a shit.

He held his injured arm lightly by his body, abstaining from using it, which would have made the wounds worse. Panting slightly, he kicked the body once, grunting with a small laugh. He looked back, straight at Valka, glaring, sizing her up, and looking at the three pieces of what used to be a Genesis.

"Come on, let's go to my safehouse. I need to get patched up, and you need some rest. Badly."

"But I'm not tire-"  
"Did I ever say that you were physically tired? We Genesis don't get that so easily. But our brains, well, they're a lot weaker than our bodies, even with our 'new and improved' abilities from evolution."

He walked off with a straight back, not looking back to check whether Valka was following him.

"Plus, you seem like good company, that's pretty hard to find nowadays."

 _What a friendly person…totally, friendly._ Valka thought, laughing in derision at herself.


	3. Making Contact

**So hey guys! (Literally two followers, lol) I realised how f #king difficult to upload twice a week, so I'll now be sticking to once-a-week updates. But besides that, I don't have much else to say. Have fun reading! And if you do, then please! Leave a review! It makes my day!**

 **-Making Contact-**

The both of them ran, silently, with naught but the silent pants, and the hammering of the rain to accompany them. They two didn't talk, trying to conserve energy, but each was lost in their own thoughts anyway, in a myriad of pondering and theories. Which were, admittedly, mostly about whether one would backstab the other.

And then a shot rang out through the narrow and messy streets of the ruined buildings. Valka jumped, Aster smiled. The tip of the bullet suddenly popped out, revealing a small note that was scribbled on with pencil, a single sentence.

 _The fuck have you been?_

Valka looked at him, like he was crazy, before opening her mouth, and asking incredulously,"Who the hell is that? And why is your head still on your shoulders?"

Aster only looked back at her with an amused expression on his face, "That would be a bit of an abusive relationship, wouldn't it?"

"So she's your-"  
"Yep, she's my girlfriend"

They spent the next two minutes climbing up multiple flights of stairs. Panting, and cursing the useless elevator, all the way until they reached the penthouse, where Aster held Valka behind him, giving her a serious look.

"Now, I should warn you before you come in, she doesn't take very kindly to strangers. The name is Kinaver, and don't call her anything else besides that. Call her a 'ranga, and you most likely won't wake up tomorrow morning."

Then he opened the door, to a ramshackle and bombed room. The place was extremely messy, and a cold draft drifted throughout the place. There was one, large room with two beds in it, which both had various miscellaneous things strewn about from old instant-noodle boxes, to large books on philosophy.

Aster walked in slowly, eyes darting from side-to-side. As if he was hunting his prey. Valka followed before him, and only stopped to stare in puzzlement at a single, orange hair, floating down, slowly, calmly.

"Hey Aster-"  
Her voice was cut off by a deafening *Bang!*. In shock, Valka looked up, straight into the icy-blue eyes of a girl with soft orange hair which had a strange, brown streak in one small part. She herself was wearing a peculiar orange hoody, which was patterned with glowing yellow hexagons throughout its entire frame. Additionally, wrapped around her neck, she wore a Crimson-red scarf. On her legs she wore a pair of faded denim jeans.

Three facts worried her. One, the girl had two large UMPs. Two, they were pointed straight at her face. Three, Kinaver didn't look like she was going to have any second-thoughts about shooting her, multiple times, in the face.

The redhead's eyes narrowed, sizing Valka up and, never taking her eyes off Valka's for a second, she called out to Aster softly, danger in her voice,

"So, care explaining who this girl is?"

For his part, Aster stood stock still, even though his wound was still bleeding, and looked like it hurt immensely. He answered calmly, voice unwavering,

"Her name's Valka, I found her being chased by some of Miyabi's goons. Most likely, she was being chased, hunted. Kinda like us."

Kinaver looked between the two suspiciously, before lowering her weapons, and shrugging.

Then, when everything seemed calm, she saw the pool of blood that had been slowly forming at Aster's feet. To make it worse; he seemed shaky, swaying on his feet, like a drunken man. This in itself was worrying, for as far as Valka and Kinaver knew, the Genesis couldn't get drunk.

And then he collapsed, and Kinaver ran to his side, her expression one of complete concentration. She had obviously done this before, Valka noted, looking on with narrowed eyes.

"Oi, Valka, was it? Go get that med-kit from the bathroom."

She ran off, and grabbed it, noting with surprise at the lightness of the white box. Her suspicions were confirmed when Kinaver popped it open. It was nearly empty. All in all, there was a single roll of bandages, a needle, and a small spool of blue nylon thread, along with a tiny bottle of dressing alcohol.

"Aster? Can you hear me? The venom, it's of a spider's. You're a Genesis, so you'll be better off than a human."  
Kinaver paused, stroking Aster's face.

"We don't have any anti-venom."

Aster looked up, straight at Kinaver and smiled, before sitting up, with a wince.

"Hey, I'll be fine, don't you worry. I've always pulled through, haven't I?

"Well, at least stay sitting, the more you move, the more the venom spreads."

Aster sighed, but bowed his head in consent, and, with reluctance, Kinaver walked into the next room. In not much time, Valka followed, walking straight into a room that had an entire wall bombed out, so that it ended in a sheer drop off the side. Kinaver was laying prone on the edge, staring into a sniper rifle that was coloured a carbon-black, and had straight lines through them that seemed to burn away at the air around her, creating a faint, orange hue.

Valka sat down next to Kinaver, smoothing down her gothic dress, and looking out at the view that beheld her, feeling the icy-cold wind blow into her face. Kinaver stayed completely still, looking out through Loop Seven, and the small spirals of smoke that drifted up over the damaged, and sad looking place.

"So, Kinaver, why's your hair that colour?"

"Because I want it to be, genius."

Valka shut up, and looked away yet again, as the awkward silence came back.

She heard an exasperated sigh come from the redhead, and they both heads at the same time, meeting each others' eyes.

"I used to be a natural redhead, before I 'evolved', the recessive gene that cause my red-hair was taken away and fixed, along with my freckles. But I always did look more natural with red-hair. So I dyed it. Back before the crystals took me, I was living with my parents in Australia. When I came to, I was in a realm of crystals. Inori came, and Mana turned feral. So I joined up with the other queen. Eventually, when we got out of Shu's arm, I made a bolt for it, in the other direction, running away from all my sins."

"And then I found this place, and I was finally alone. Well, until Aster showed up one day, running down that place with half a dozen goons chasing him. I would have shot him, if I hadn't seen his void. His pursuers were short work, by the time I was done."

She laughed, and looked back through her scope, keeping watch.

"You can imagine my expression when I heard that he used to be a Mananite! Especially a captain of The Shadow Blades. Thankfully, he was a runaway, a deserter, which I took for neutrality. Since then, we've saved each other's arse a dozen times each. He's the only one keeping count though, and makes it a point of honour to keep it even."

She stood up, face grim, both SMGs on her back.

"He's gonna owe me big time for this, there's a convoy of medical supplies coming in, shipped by Mananites, likely **to** Mananites. We'll take over those supplies, grab what we need, and leave the rest to the civvies. You're gonna help me at ground-zero, I'll support you from the back."

The sniper-rifle she'd been holding dissipated slowly into smoke, which curled up, and into Kinaver's body, where she gasped lightly, chest expanding outwards.

She looked at Valka with a foreboding glance, as if saying, _Don't fuck with me_.

"Let's go."

And then she jumped off the building.


	4. Dire Circumstances

**So hey guys, slow chapter up ahead, but I fully intend on making up for that, with the next chapter being awesome, choreographed (Sorta) action and fighting, but for now, be patient, even if this chapter is a bit boring. Also, I'm having trouble figuring out more voids, so if you have any suggestions or ideas, be sure to submit them! Anyway, that's all I had to say, enjoy this new chap!**

 **~End~**

 _ **Chapter 4: Dire Circumstances**_

The wind whipped past the girl dressed in red, hair billowing out magnificently behind her, she plummeted, gaining more speed with every second, until she hit terminal velocity, at about 20 metres in the air. That was when her large sniper-rifle appeared back into her hands with a wave of black smoke. Kinaver flipped once in the air, and shot a bullet straight at the ground in front of her, and as the bullet impacted the ground, a strange, orange bubble was formed, throbbing and hissing with malice.

It was this bubble that the redheaded girl fell into, with an immediate slowing of the speed she'd been falling with. When her feet hit the ground, there was no sudden explosion of flesh, no smashing of legs, no Kinaver-pancake. In fact, the girl came out, completely unscathed, running a hand through her substantial amount of hair, with the other grasping the heavy-looking sniper with what seemed to be no effort at all.

Meanwhile Valka popped in behind her, void in her hand from teleporting into the ground, negating any, and all fall damage completely. Kinaver didn't even bother to look back at the girl, and instead climbed up a ladder onto the roof of a nearby house. She crouched behind the air-conditioning units, and looked through her scope, aiming towards the approaching trucks, and then at the middle of the bridge, where'd she have the best vantage point to pick them off.

"Alright Valka, you see that elevated section of the bridge? I want you to teleport into there, and start tearing shit up. They won't have anywhere to run, and your urumi will probably be very useful in that area, cos' it's so open. Meanwhile, I'll be over here, providing long-range support, so don't worry if the poor bastard you were just fighting turns into a pile of ash."

"Don't fuck this up, yeah? You fuck up, I'm not gonna be able to help your sorry ass. You should know what Mananites do with their prisoners; after all, you were one, back in the war, and even after, weren't you?"

Sensing the obvious hostility, Valka turned back, and said a single string of sentences, quietly, coldly, aiming to give off the impression of complete apathy,

"I'm not like them. Not anymore. This person is a new Valka. This person is the start of a new life, one without my old sins, one without anything I've done holding me back."

"Sure it is Valka, sure it-"

"I doubt that you've never done a single bad thing in your life, so shut up, and let me do what you want me to do."

To this, Kinaver did indeed shut up, and looked back through her scope, crouching behind the unit, refusing to talk, a deadpan expression on her face. Conversation was over, and Valka knew it.

One second, the girl wearing a gothic dress was right next to Kinaver, in the next, she had disappeared in a puff of cold mist.

~Time skip~

The Mananites driving the vehicle were terrified, they were a pair of grunts, and had been hired only a couple of weeks earlier. By this time, they had barely been shown the ropes of the hierarchy, and hadn't even been able to fully train with their voids. Long story short, they had no chance against the Genesis sniper, who put a bullet straight into the boy's skull. Funny thing was, his head didn't explode like an engorged grape. Instead, he simply slumped forward, onto the steering wheel, lifeless eyes staring at the girl next to him, who screamed in terror.

Then the strangest thing happened, the side of the boy's head started to glow red-hot. All the girl could do as the truck swerved and screeched across the road. At the exact same moment when the vehicle smashed into the curb, metal bending and twisting unnaturally, a small flash of orange fire came out from the boy's dead body, and struck the girl straight in the skull. She died just as quick as the other three sitting in the back.

The hummer in front of the transport braked to a stop, and people poured out. A pair died immediately, as one bullet struck the guy on the left, the person to his right was too slow to dodge the fragment, and the front of his shirt blew apart with a spray of blood. The other two had the sense to dodge out of the way, and the fragments missed them.

Those two took to the sky, pulling out their voids, and taking off with incredible speed. It took another one of them to die before they realised where Kinaver was hiding. The single remaining enemy was on a large hoverboard, and grinned, flashing a confident, cocky smile at Kinaver, who returned the expression behind her scope. She fired a bullet, and in the other moment, the person wasn't there anymore.

Her sniper hissed, and the red outlines faded, making Kinaver swear as it slowly started to recharge. The one downside of having a weapon with two separate abilities was that, if she missed, it took a veritable age to use again. To make it worse, the person had appeared again, and the bottom of the hoverboard void had opened, dropping out flat, metallic discs. Whenever one landed on the roof, it rotated, and sprouted legs, along with a menacing, red, glowing eye and a pair of large machine-guns.

Other spherical things also came out, but didn't fall to the ground, and instead extended wings, flying and hovering above the ground, focusing directly on Kinaver, who stood completely outnumbered. TO which she only sighed, recalling her sniper rifle, and bringing out her dual-UMPs, glaring at the scuttling and humming robots with annoyance.

"Come on then, take a pop if you think you're hard enough!"

Meanwhile, Valka had climbed up to the bridge, and had covered her mouth, attempting to block out the haze of dust and smoke out from her mouth with vain. In front of her was the truck, with the front mangled and scrunched up, like it had eaten a lemon. She wondered dimly how anything could still even be salvageable from that wreck, but it wasn't her job. All she had to do was sweep for survivors, of which there seemed to be many, gathering from the panicked and rising voices.

"Oh God! Oh God! Ix, Ix, wake up! Please don't go…!'

"Leave her, she's gone, all we can do, is not end up with her fate, now come on! We don't have much time, our captain told us to go back, and that's what we're gonna do!"

Their voices were full of something Valka wasn't prepared for, emotions, empathy, and humanity. There was no thirst for blood in their speech, no psychotic tones, only the soft, scared, and panicked whimpering that a terrified being sent out. It shook her to her core, she had never really seen any of the new recruits, or heard them talking. As Genesis, she was valued more highly above them and it showed in almost everything, respect, speech, titles, and living quarters. To know that they were arguably more sincere, and less 'evil' than her filled her heart with doubt, she couldn't have the heart to kill them.

So she walked out, hands above her head, and got out a single sentence,

"Hey! I'm coming out! Don't shoot!"

No sooner than the last words had come out of her mouth, did the tougher sounding girl climb up onto the machine-gun of the humvee, and start spraying at her, yelling all while hot death spewed out of the weapon at 450 rounds per minute. Valka would have been reduced to nothing more than fleshy chunks, had she been standing unprepared.

She was never unprepared.

The moment she heard the movement and scrambling movement of the grunt, she had pulled her void out, and had teleported, leaving the bullets to strike at empty air. Then she stood up, behind the gunner, who looked around nervously, and at her teammate, who stood by a dead body with a peculiar round hole in her skull.

"Did…did we get her?"

"We…we just killed another person. Oh fuck! Oh fuck! What if it was a civvie!? What if she just came looking for medicine!? We just killed a daughter, a wife, a mother, or someone a person loved! Fuck!"

The girl looked at her hands, stained and covered with blood.

"Is…is this what war is like? I…I don't like this, it wasn't what Yuu said it would be like!"

"This isn't even war, you haven't goddamned seen war, it's worse than you could possibly ever imagine! Just stand behind me rookie, you'll be saf-"

 _Crack_

That was the sound her skull made when Valka hit her in the back of the head, the person fell over, out like a light, but still breathing. When the rookie saw Valka standing right behind her officer's limp body, her eyes widened, and her mouth opened, about to scream. But she didn't get a chance, as she was smacked against the cold, hard metal of the fuel-guzzling, military vehicle, out exactly like the person she'd been talking to.

Valka looked around, and inside the humvee, finding nothing but more, limp, dead corpses, slumped against the doors, with red splats and lines drawing down to their limp corpses. But besides that, her job was done, she'd cleared the ground troops out, and now the supplies belonged to them, and others who use them better than the Mananites ever would.

With a jolt, she realised her choice of wording, _them_ , not _her,_ not _myself, them._ She was thinking about others, instead of selfishly withholding anything. She could already imagine what she would have been doing, had she still been a Mananite, gathering supplies, hoarding them, and trading for other things, food, clean water, a warm, shower, and intel. It was just life for her back then.

Everything had a price, nothing was for free, and nothing was taken for granted. Sharing with others was considered as a weakness, and something to be taken advantage of. Foolish, in other words, she learned this the hard way after offering medicine and drugs to a boy who had been badly sick. After recovering, he had pretended to still be sick, and she'd given him more, in the hope that she'd find companionship. Instead, all she got was a smirk, and a sideways comment. No thank you, no appreciation, only cold and mocking derision.

She'd stopped helping others after that.

And now, she felt an emotion that she'd thought she'd lost forever. Happiness. It bloomed inside her like a flower in spring, it warmed her cold bones, and she just let the happiness that she still could hold emotions flow. It was mixed along with the beautiful knowledge that a part of her humanity was left, even after coming out a Genesis, and facing such compassionless people.

And then she saw the guy on a hoverboard. Kinaver had stood up, and was facing a veritable army of robots alone. It didn't matter how strong she was, she'd be killed against such an overwhelming amount of enemies. She wouldn't allow that to happen. Not now. Not when she was so close…

She pulled out her void, and teleported, hoping that she'd make it in time to help her newfound acquaintance, and not have to carry her back in a body-bag.


	5. The Ice-Cold Fire

**Hey guys, what's up? So, not much to say here, except that this chapter is gonna be a lot more…action filled that the last one, I promise, or, I hope, at least. Without any further ado, I present to you the fifth chapter.**

 **~End~**

 _ **Chapter 5: The Ice-Cold Fire**_

A single bot rolled towards her, and tried to slash at her knees. She raised her foot, and smashed it into pieces with a loud, *Crunch*!

Kinaver looked back up, steely eyed, hair flowing around her like some magnificent, red shield.

The swarm came. Hundreds of clacking, red-eyed crawlers that scuttled towards her in an ugly wave of grey. Without hesitation, she fell, backwards, over the edge of the building, the robots followed her mindlessly, and she twisted around the air, guns blazing, and bullets smashing into their peculiar, carapace-like shells.

She landed, and faced upwards, fingers pressed firmly on the triggers, mowing down the crowds of grotesque machines, but they just kept coming, and for every bullet used, there was one less, all until there was no more left, and the guns clicked, empty. She tossed the two, now useless weapons at the horde, striking down four of them, when the heavy, metal guns smashed into them.

It might as well have been none.

She was now surrounded, and, for some reason, the guns weren't firing yet, only trained on her in deadly, deadly precision, and unquestioning loyalty to their master, who was hovering over Kinaver, eyes alight with glee.

It took the mask off, and pink hair dropped out, flowing over the girl's shoulders in delicate strands. Kinaver wasn't impressed, and was actually rather annoyed. They were in a war, and she **still** kept her hair like that? They utter contempt Kinaver felt towards the hovering girl was palpable, and seemed to fill the air, to which the pink-haired girl only laughed at.

"What's wrong dear? Jealous that your hair isn't quite as good as mine?"

"Why haven't you killed me yet? Get it over with."

"Well! That's because Nanba wants you alive! Believe me; I would like nothing better than to riddle you full of holes right now, but even **I'm** not pretentious enough to make Nanba angry! So, you're gonna get knocked out like a good little girl right now, and come with me to meet him! Okay?"

Kinaver only smirked, laughing at the floating person's words dryly, and shook her head, looking in derision at her.

"Very well then, I'll have to do this by force-WHAT THE FUCK!?"

Another void had coiled around the end of her hoverboard, a whip-like weapon that was pulled down, and sent her attacker flying off.

Valka…

When the pink haired girl landed, she was NOT happy, scrambling up, she screamed at the bots to shoot at Valka, who stood on the roof, looking down with some disdain at the swarms of robots on the ground, and in the air, who trained their guns at her.

It was at that moment that Kinaver made her attack, she pulled out a nearby pipe, grabbed a robot, and smashed the sharp, piece of broken metal that jutted out, attaching it to a wall, upon which it then turned into a small, black husk, before exploding in a small ball of fire.

Wasting no time, she smashed the sharp end into another robot, sticking it, and the pipe, into the ground, where it stuck fast. Another bot jumped up at her from behind, but she merely lifted up her foot, kicking it up, and then backhanding it into a wall, where it simply smashed into bits from the force. Two more jumped up, and she pulled the pipe out, thrusting the sharp end into its head, and then swivelling it around to smack the other down. Three more scuttled around her legs, but she stepped on one, before forming her newly reloaded sniper rifle, and shooting the other in the glowing, red eye. Point Blanc.

With that, three more dropped dead from the ricochet effect of the rifle, and exploded, while the others scuttled back away

She raised the rifle, and shot two of the hovering robots that swivelled around, trying to find an appropriate angle to shoot Valka, who was currently busy with the other girl. Firing another small stream of energy, she struck them straight in the red, bulbous eye, and the ricocheting, orange pellets exploded out from the destructed shell, and struck three other, which were flying around.

Worrying about her newfound ally, she dissipated her rifle, and started to climb up the wall.

Meanwhile, Valka was grappling furiously with the other girl, using her void against hers. The hoverboard had split into two, and attached themselves onto her arms and hands, making strong, durable gauntlets. It was no wonder that she was using it well, and Valka's long, bendy whip-like weapon was not working well against it, it seemed that the girl just swatted away every attack, getting closer with every movement. Thankfully, it meant that the drones flying overhead couldn't get a clear shot, and, for the most part, was useless.

Valka launched forward with three criss-crossed attacks, which were blocked, and then went for an airborne slash, which landed a hit, albeit minimal, a small, simple slash across the cheek, which drew a small sliver of red, gleaming blood.

Then she had an idea, the whip was flexible, and Valka would be no match for the girl in hand-to-hand combat, but what if the other girl was….?

Thinking fast, she coiled her void around the right arm of her opponent, and pulled the person forward, running forward at the same time, so that her own fist smashed into her face. Valka clearly heard a crunch, and it was confirmed by the blood running down her face when Valka turned back to look. The girl roared in anger, but only got halfway through before Valka cracked the whip, making her smash her own fist into her knee, making her scream in agony as the leg was audibly broken.

The shock of the hit taken made the girl's void dissipate, along with the robots that also disappeared. Valka kept her void wrapped around her seemingly defeated opponent's arm in caution.

Big mistake.

In one swift movement, the pink-haired girl drew back her right arm, pulling a very surprised Valka along with it. With it, she drew back her left hand, and punched Valka straight in the stomach, causing crippling pain, and winding her, the distraction caused Valka to lose her void, and it dissipated, exactly like her opponent's.

Only now, Valka was left, lying on the ground, clutching her stomach in pain, and desperately trying to get breathe back again, while the other person clambered over her, straddling her chest, and began to choke the life out of Valka, who tried, unsuccessfully, to get the offending person of her body, and regain her composure. It didn't work, and her movements became more and more sluggish, until a bullet went straight through her enemy's shoulder.

The girl fell off the choking, gasping Valka, and was immediately strangled by Kinaver, who pinned her legs down, and choked the air out of her, stopping only when she fell unconscious.

Kinaver got up from the task, huffing in exertion, and turned to look at a recovering Valka,

"How you doin' mate?"


End file.
